“Zoe!” Dorian cried out from behind me. “To me!”
I turned toward Dorian just as another Nosferatu rushed toward me. Its hands curled into sharp claws, and I ducked to the ground just in time. Dorian’s training kicked in, the moves I’d practiced so many times coming to life as if by instinct. I threw out my leg and rolled to the side, jumping up just as the vampire fell to the ground.
Taking a deep breath, I landed on top of the creature, yanking my blade from my belt. The vampire hissed into my face, its breath reeking of iron and dirt.
“You can kill as many of us as you want, Shadow,” it said in a low and eerily-lyrical voice, “but we’ll keep coming back. One by one for the rest of your days. Until we have your sweet, delicious blood.”
And with that, I slid my dagger into its skull until the breath stilled on its gruesome lips.
With sweat dripping into my eyes, I scanned the carnage around me. Dorian fought two more vampires at once, their bodies blurring as they moved at an impossible speed. Ryker was on his back, struggling to fend off a Nosferatu woman with impossibly long dark hair. Gigi was gone, and I didn’t see Jack anywhere in sight. My heart sunk when I shifted my eyes to the left and found his body on the ground. They’d snapped his neck as well.
Grief shook me. This was all my fault. All of it. If it weren’t for my terrible magic and my tempting blood, none of this would have happened. No one would be dead, and the rest of us wouldn’t be two seconds away from death ourselves.
With my magic still burning hot inside of me, I finally lifted my gaze and stared at the raging battle. My power’s whispers filled my head again, words speaking to the darkest parts of me. You are stronger than this, it said. Get on your feet and fight, shadow mage.
For the first time since I’d begun to battle with my magic all those months ago, its words brought me comfort instead of pain. Closing my eyes, I stood and curled my hands into fists, taking two deep breaths before I launched myself at the vampire who towered over Ryker.
Two rebels might have fallen this night, but I wouldn’t let another die. I would defeat these Nosferatu if it was the last thing I did.
I threw myself forward and grabbed the vampire around the neck, yanking it away from Ryker’s trembling body. Hissing, she whirled toward me and smiled when her eyes landed on my face.
“Shadow,” she whispered, dancing a step left and then a step right. “Show me what you’ve got.”
“Okay,” I said, and then threw my dagger at her heart. Her eyes went wide when the blade found its mark, digging into the only part of her that was still alive. In an instant, she was dead on the ground.
“Zoe! Dorian!” Ryker called out, waving his arms from where he’d fled to the travel circle while I’d taken on the vampire. “I’ve finished the rune. We’ve got thirty seconds before this thing gets us the hell out of here. You need to run. Now!”
Dorian was by my side in an instant, only a single Nosferatu at his back. He grabbed my hand, and we sprinted across the wet grass. Rain continued to pelt down on our heads as the shriek of the vampire followed us close behind. We were going to make it. The three of us were going to get out of this hellhole alive.
But when we were only seconds from joining Ryker, the vampire raced past us, slamming into the warlock before I could even so much as choke out a cry of alarm. The travel spell shimmered, filling up the darkness with an impossibly bright light.
And then they disappeared.
Chapter 15
Dorian slammed his fist on the soggy ground where Ryker and the Nosferatu had just disappeared. “Shit! Shit!”
Even though the danger had passed, my heart still beat wildly in my chest. “What just happened? Did the vampire get through? Do you think Ryker made it out alive?”
“I don’t know, Zoe.” Dorian’s fists met the earth again as he dropped his head toward the ground. “I should have just agreed to take my castle. No one would have died.”
I placed my hand on his shoulder, and he winced. “You can’t blame yourself for this, Dorian. We had no way of knowing they’d be out here waiting to attack. And someone still would have had to come outside to draw the perimeter. I don’t think taking the castle would have saved anyone at all.”
“But at least there’d be room to fight inside the castle,” Dorian said. “Now, Ryker is stuck in that tiny circle all the way back to their base. How the hell he’d survive that, I don’t know. That’s a long, long trip alone with a hungry vampire.”
My heart squeezed tight as I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Listen, if you want to play the blame game, then you better start pointing your fingers at me. Because I’m the whole reason they were out here on the hunt in the first place.”
“Because your blood is just so fucking sweet,” Dorian said in a low growl as he stood, his body angled toward mine. He pulled me close and weaved his fingers through my hair, pulling back my head so that I had to meet his eyes. “You’re impossible to resist, Zoe. I should have known that going into that cavern. I could have done more to keep you shielded from their desire.”
I swallowed hard, not sure desire was the right word to apply to the Nosferatu. Maybe more to a certain hybrid. One who was staring at me now like he wanted to eat up every last ounce of me. I shivered at the thought, the adrenaline of the fight turning into something much different than fear and bloodlust.
“You’re cold,” Dorian said when he felt me shiver. “We should get you back inside and get that fire going again. We don’t know when—or if—Ryker will be back.”
“I’m cold, but that’s not what I’m shivering about.” The words popped out of my mouth before I could stop them. We’d survived a Nosferatu attack, and Dorian had just spoken of desire. It was all I could do not to wrap my thighs around his waist right here and now in the dark storm of wind and rain.
His lips quirked as he lifted me into his arms. “Oh, is that so, Zoe Bennett? Perhaps I should warm you up some other way.”
But once inside, Dorian didn’t carry me up the stairs and deposit me into his bed as I’d hoped. Instead, he stoked the fire back to life and grabbed a shovel from beside the door. His face was grim, no sign of the desire that I’d been craving.
“I need to take care of the bodies.” He gave a heavy sigh. “They deserve a better end than being left out in the rain, and if they remain where they are, it’ll only draw more Nosferatu to the grounds. We’re safe inside this castle. They can’t get in here. But I don’t want them wailing outside all day and night. Because that will get the attention of the Blood Coven. And I think neither of us want that.”
Shivering still, I nodded. “Do you want me to help?”
“Stay inside where it’s warm and safe,” Dorian said. “More could come back.”
“But if they do, you’ll be out there all alone.” I shook my head and stood, but my knees almost collapsed underneath me. “I can’t agree to that.”
“Too damn bad, Zoe Bennett,” Dorian said with a slight smile. “You’re staying and resting. Remember, they don’t want me. My blood is useless to them. Hell, I practically don’t even have any for them to drink. Not the kind they want anyway.”
That was a strange thought, but I decided not to pry into the exact science of his vampiric nature. I had a feeling it would only open a can of worms that I wasn’t quite ready to handle. There’d been enough Dorian revelations for one day. And I was more than tired from the long night in the cells, the escape from the Blood Coven, and the fight with the Nosferatu.
I couldn’t let Dorian go out there alone though.
But before I could get my feet on the floor, I felt myself drift into darkness.
In the distance, a howl split the night. With clouds in my mind, I cracked open my eyes to see a roaring fire in front of me. I glanced out the window to find nothing but darkness, clouds obscuring a full moon. The room was silent other than the crackle of the flames, and as I pushed up from the couch, I found that Dorian still wasn’t back from burying the bodi
es.
I tried not to panic. There could be a million reasons why he was still out there, though hours must have passed for the night to have deepened this much. He may have taken them someplace else, worried the scent of fresh blood would tempt the Nosferatu to come onto the grounds, even if the bodies were buried in the earth. Or perhaps some more vampires had shown up, and he’d had to fight them off. Or maybe he’d drawn them away from the castle.
That thought gave me little comfort. If he’d had to fight them alone, had he gotten badly hurt? Was he out there, somewhere in the dark night? Stuck in the pounding rain and whistling wind? Hoping and waiting for me to finally wake?
My heart pulsed as I padded into the hallway, but as it turned out, I didn’t have to go very far. A door was ajar halfway down the hallway, light spilling out onto the hardwood floor. Slowly, I approached the room and peeked inside to find Dorian perched on an armchair, his dirt-caked hands hanging limply by his sides. He stared at a collection of framed photos on the wall.
“Feeling any better?” Dorian asked without turning my way. He had better hearing than mortals, and he would have heard me approach long before I even reached the door.
“Physically, yes. Mentally…I don’t know,” I said, sliding into the room. “Did you take care of…?”
He nodded, shadows and lines etching his ancient face. “There’s so much blood on my hands.”
“Then, let’s get them clean,” I said as I reached him. I placed my hands on his shoulders and lowered myself to crouch in front of him. “I’ll help.”
He shook his head. “That’s not what I mean, Zoe. So many people have died because of me, some by my own hands. This curse, sometimes it feels like a gift. Enhanced speed and agility. Strength. I can hear things I shouldn’t be able to hear. And I get so many more years on this planet. But the truth is, those abilities only add to the curse. They don’t help my life at all. They hinder it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, staring up into his deep charcoal eyes. He’d rarely ever talked about his curse, and he’d never told me why he’d gotten it in the first place. Whatever had driven those warlocks to turn him into an Unbound, it had been terrible enough that he didn’t want me to know.
“Because it only leads to more blood on my hands,” he said sadly. “My strength can kill people. Each extra year only leads to more deaths. And nothing I can do, no matter how hard I try, changes that.”
“But your strength didn’t kill Jack and Gigi,” I said. “The Nosferatu did that.”
“This happened on my property. Jack and Gigi came here to get us back home,” Dorian said. “They were my responsibility, and I agreed to stay behind and fight the vampires, thinking my strength was enough. After all this time, I should know better, but I don’t.”
Tears pricked Dorian’s eyes as he stared hard at the photos on the wall, and suddenly I realized that this was about far more than the rebels. Dorian was speaking of something else, something that happened long ago, something that made him into the man he was today. Quietly, I took his hands in mine. His cold steel hands that sent waves of warmth through my body.
“What happened, Dorian?” I asked in a whisper. “Who are those people in the photos?”
Dorian clenched his jaw and glanced away. “My family. Mother, father, sister, brother. All bone mages who died because of me.”
My lips pressed together into a straight line, and my heart throbbed painfully in my chest at the sight of such an open wound inside his mind. I had a feeling I knew how his family had died, and while a part of me was desperate to know, I didn’t want to make him relive his painful past.
“I’m sure it wasn’t your fault, Dorian. You’d never—”
“But it was my fault.” Angrily, he stood and began to pace the floor. The soft glow of the light illuminated his pained expression and the tight fists by his sides. “There’s something you don’t know about me, Zoe, and it’s something I never wanted you to learn.” Slowly, he glanced up and met my eyes. They churned with fear and pain and something else. Regret. “But with the way I feel about you, it’s only right for you to know. It’s going to change how you see me, but being back here, seeing these photos, remembering their faces…it’s reminded me that I’m not the man you think I am.”
My heart thumped in my chest, and I slid down to my knees in front of him. Capturing his hands in mine, I looked up into his face, willing him to see I meant every word. “You are the man I think you are. Something that happened a hundred years ago isn’t going to change that, and it certainly won’t change the way I see you.”
He shook his head and sighed. “What would change it, Zoe? Think about it. Cowardice? Thievery? Cheating? Rage?” Slowly, he shifted closer until his lips were only a whisper away from mine. “Murder?”
I sucked in a sharp breath and swallowed hard. “What happened, Dorian?”
“Before I was cursed,” he began, “I was what they called a warlock-for-hire. There are a few of those now, but they often do things like demon banishment or object enchantments. Tracking, sometimes. Back then though…there really was only a few reasons why you’d hire a warlock.”
My heart squeezed tight. I knew where this was going now. I’d heard the stories. Everyone had. Warlocks-for-hire were legends, individuals who had influenced some of the biggest events in the supernatural history books. Most of the time, they were shadow mages, but there’d been at least a few in every coven.
“You were an assassin,” I breathed, hardly daring to voice the word aloud. Because that made it feel far too real, though it explained a great deal about his life. Why he’d fled Europe in the first place. Why he’d insisted on becoming an Enforcer. He had the skills and the knowledge necessary to get the job done.
He winced, and then nodded. “I only took on jobs that didn’t involve innocents. I had a code, and I stuck to it, but that code ended up breaking for me in the end. One of the women I tracked. She—” Dorian’s voice went rough as he cut off his sentence, glancing away with his jaw clenched tight. “Just because someone looks guilty doesn’t mean they are. I was the executioner of a woman who did not deserve to die. She’d just been covering for someone. Protecting her sister. Her family had adopted a shadow mage into their family, and that was the true person behind the crimes. When the real culprit found out what I’d done, she cursed me to live out my days as an Unbound vampire, and then she murdered my family.”
Chapter 16
Dorian’s words echoed in my brain as I padded down the carpeted hallway toward the kitchen. For the first time since I’d known him, his face was burning hot, so hot his skin felt like fire. I was on a mission to find a cool cloth and to process what he’d just told me.
On the one hand, he’d only gone after those mages who he thought were guilty. On the other hand, he’d been a fucking assassin. That was way worse than the con artist I’d been, any way you looked at it. If I hurt someone, they’d ended up a couple hundred dollars poorer. If he hurt someone, well, they’d ended up dead.
After I found the kitchen and a rag, I poured some cold water on the cloth and made my way back to the room where I’d found Dorian. When I reached it, he was gone. Sighing, I headed back toward the living room across the hall, but it was empty other than the crackle of the fire. I scanned the entryway and peeked in the rest of the rooms on the floor, but Dorian was nowhere to be found in any of them.
Just when I was about to turn my feet toward the stairs in order to explore the second floor, a chill swept across my skin. The front door was cracked open, and a slip of moonlight spilled onto the floor. Shivering, I edged closer to peer out into the night. Had Dorian gone outside? Or had something else come in?
With a deep breath, I pushed open the door and stepped out into the cold. In the distance, I saw a figure amidst a cluster of tall headstones that were bent sideways, surrounded by a circle of trees.
“Dorian?” I called out, but my voice got picked up by the wind.
Was that my partner? For a mo
ment, I wasn’t sure. Why would he have come out here? Why would he be standing in the middle of a bunch of graves?
It could be another Nosferatu, waiting for the perfect moment to attack. There was something vaguely not-Nosferatu about this figure though. The vampires we’d encountered stood differently than most people. Slightly hunched as if bracing themselves against the harsh reality of the world. Their hands were formed into claws, and their knees were bent under the weight of their cravings.
That wasn’t what I saw now. This was just a man, standing in the rain. And as I made my way toward him, the truth became clear. It was Dorian.
“Dorian, what are you doing out here?” I asked when I reached him.
He turned toward me, his eyes wide as if he were surprised that it was me. “You’re still here? Why didn’t you leave?”
“Of course I didn’t leave,” I said. “What you did a hundred years ago doesn’t have anything to do with who you are now.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Zoe,” he said, turning away. “Because it has everything to do with who I am now. It’s why I have to hold myself back when I fight against a warlock. It’s why that splinter coven wanted to use me for their demon corruption. It’s why I have to stock my refrigerator with animal blood. And it’s why I want so badly to drink from your veins.”
“Those are things you have to deal with,” I said, “but none of that is who you are. Because that man chooses to hold himself back. He chooses to fight against the demons, not with. He chooses animal blood instead of human. And he’s done nothing but protect me since the moment we met.”
“I could end up killing you,” he said.
“Except you wouldn’t,” I said. “You’d fall on your own dagger before you did that.”
He whirled on me then, his eyes wild and angry. “You only think that because you still don’t see me as the assassin I once was. You weren’t there. You don’t know what I can do.”
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